


The Haunt

by neichan



Category: Once a Thief (TV), SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, Supernatural, The X-Files
Genre: Adult Content, Alternate Universe, Challenge Response
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-10
Updated: 2006-03-08
Packaged: 2019-02-05 16:39:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12798330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neichan/pseuds/neichan
Summary: Krychek haunts a few people....





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

  
Author's notes: Slash. Thoughts of incest. ghosts...  


* * *

Victor Mansfield was utterly, positively certain he was losing his mind. He lay in the bed, his bed, and looked at the apparition at the foot of it. A ghost, with his face. Identical, except for the blood and dirt and other filth covering it and the clothes of the ghost. The ghost was wearing the remnants of a suit. Vic never wore suits if he could get away with it. Vic wore jeans, black of blue it didn't matter, just nice and well worn, broken in, T shirts, Henley's and flannel shirts. Boots, too.

 

The ghost was trying to tell him something, gesticulating wildly, gore, red and clotted, showed at shoulder and hip. The ghost was pissed. No doubt of it, his face contorted, angry, teeth bared.

 

It looked so much like him, Victor felt a premonition, a frisson of terror that he was seeing his own future.

 

He inched over to the side of the mattress, the ghost watching his every move. Slowly, carefully he reached over, further and...the phone rang jarringly just as his hand touched the receiver. He came close to expiring from a heart attack, panting to catch his breath.

 

The phone rang again, he snatched it up never taking his eyes from the scowling thing at the end of his bed.

 

"Vic." It was Mac, sounding more freaked out than Victor had ever heard him. "Are you alright?"

 

"Don't tell me." Vic said, his voice absolutely calm, as huge a lie as he'd ever managed to pull off. "You see it, too."

 

"Oh, Christ. Thank ghod. I thought I was going fucking nuts over here." Mac almost moaned his relief. "What should we do? What the hell is going on?"

 

"I'm not sure, but..." He hesitated to ask, but then the request came pouring out. "I'd just a soon not be alone with...it." He admitted to his partner, sometimes irritant, sometimes friend. They were close, but not this close. He didn't routinely discuss his feelings or his weaknesses with Mac.

 

"I'm on my way." Mac said hanging up the phone in the next breath. Which Vic hated. Because that meant he had to look at the ghost again with nothing to distract him. He very carefully cradled the handset.

 

"If you don't mind," Vic said, feeling like an idiot and nervous as hell actually talking to the thing, "I am going to get dressed." Far from minding, the ghost dissolved from it's position at the foot of the bed, re-materializing next to the walk in closet, its doors flying open. Oh great. A whatchamacallit...a poltergeist-y thing.

 

Vic swallowed. Gingerly he stood and advanced on the closet, slipping into it as far from the manifestation as possible. He'd never dressed faster in his life. Black jeans, socks, underwear, pullover turtleneck, black leather jacket over his black leather shoulder holster. Black boots. Black gun. He inched out of the closet. Hoping...

 

But the ghost was still there.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

 

"Jesus!" Dean Winchester sat bolt upright. "Sam!" His brother lay next to him in the king sized bed snoring, happily asleep. Right next to the...thing that was climbing onto the bed. One vaporous knee already planted next to Sam's boxer clad hip.

 

Predictably Sam slumbered on, one of the heaviest sleepers Dean had ever known. And Dean, the oldest and a product of his father's teaching, one of the lightest. Sam murmured. Dean reached out and snagged him around the chest, dragging him across and into his lap, before shoving his brother behind him. Sam moaning a sleepy protest.

 

The ghost grinned, it's bloody face handsome behind all it's mess, Dean had to admit, looking at the thing carefully. It's green eyes glowed like fiery emeralds.

 

"What the hell do you want?" He asked. "Don't touch my brother." He added warningly, as Sam snuggled around his back, face nuzzling his hip. The contact was as devastating as always. Welcome and yet dreaded for the feelings it aroused in him. Responses he wasn't able to control. Blood rushing to fill his aching groin as Sam's breath feathered across his thigh. He was achingly hard that fast, Sam still asleep, unaware of it all, his cheek only inches from Dean's hard on.

 

The ghost smirked, one dark brow lifting, then it frowned, looking down at itself as a hole appeared in it's shoulder as if by magic.

 

"You are real." Dean said suddenly understanding. "Where are you? For real? I mean, where is your body? You are still alive aren't you?"

 

The ghost looked both angry and pleased with him. They sat, staring at each other, the ghost growing more and more furious. Then Dean hit himself in the forehead.

 

"Damn, you need some way...some thing..." He glanced around. A travel map of the area lay folded on the hotel room's table. He rose, warily. "You, come with me, I ain't leaving you with him, with Sam." He waited, tense to see what the thing, the man, he corrected himself would do. It flew after him.

 

He spread out the map on the table, switching on the overhead light.

 

Sam made a sound of protest, pulling a pillow over his head. Good, Dean thought, looking down at his diminishing erection. He didn't like Sam to see him like this. Sure Sam didn't know it wasn't dreams of some hot babe that was responsible. Sam had no idea.. that it was Sam who made Dean hard as a rock.

 

The ghost was suddenly there, big and snarling in his face, reminding Dean that time was of the essence. Shakily Dean focused on the map. One ghostly, blood dripping finger pointed, instantly skewering a point on the map.

 

"Whoa." Dean heard it from behind him. Then, stronger. "You, ghost-thing, get away from my brother." An echo of what he had said himself. He turned to look over his shoulder at Sam. Who was standing, pointing his taser at the ghost. Who had floated to a point between Sam and Dean.

 

Sam was sure that ghosts didn't like electricity, that it made them dematerialize or leave. Dean agreed that ghosts didn't like being tasered. But he thought it just pissed them off. If you were damn lucky and it was a ghost who had really poor concentration it vaporized, unable to keep it's form when it was too pissed off to keep it together. But if it was strong...the taser didn't do shit.

 

Except, now the ghost was between him and Sammy, and if his brother shot the ghost...it was going to go right through it and into Dean, too. Fuck! It made him up his evaluation of the ghost exponentially, and he'd remember that if, when, he met the man behind it. But right now...

 

"No!" He shouted as he saw Sam's fingers flex. "If you shoot me, I swear I'll beat your ass, Sam Winchester!" Dean saw comprehension dawn on his brother's sheet creased face. The taser lowered until it was no longer pointing at him.

 

The ghost looked almost disappointed as it moved back to the table and pointed again at the small dot on the map.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Dean whirled, lifting his gun and pointing it at the face of the man....he gaped.

 

"Who the hell are you?" He asked, noting secondarily the gun pointed at his own chest, and the one pointed at his head by a dead eyed if very handsome man who oddly reminded him a little of a very cold, older Sam. If Sam was a monster. Which he wasn't. This other man, though wasn't so lucky.

 

The first man looked exactly like the ghost. Except he wasn't bloody or bruised or messed up or anything. He was dressed in black head to toe, and he was over six feet tall. So was the man backing him up. Both were good-looking. Bigger than he was, wider, too.

 

"I think you should be answering that question." The number two man said, moving closer, his eyes fixed on Dean's face. "And you can lower your peashooter, too, hotshot." The gun trained on him had a huge gaping barrel, at least a .45. Dean let his gun fall to his side. No way was he walking away if he got shot with that cannon. He prayed Sam would take a little longer in the car. Just long enough for him to make sure these guys were less jumpy. Less ready to shoot.

 

"I was following a ghost." Dean said. Now they'd either shoot him for making a joke or they'd laugh. And Sam would hear them. Would be warned. Hopefully he'd run away, not try to rescue his big brother.

 

The men didn't laugh. The man in front, damn if he didn't have the greenest eyes Dean had ever seen, actually looked interested. The other one, snorted. Not so easily taken in. They were next to a graveyard after all.

 

"What did this ghost look like?" Suspicion dripped from his tone.

 

Dean shrugged, then froze when the bigger man tensed. "Like him," he said, he thought a second before adding, "...but he was shot full of holes."

 

The first man stretched his neck, ridding himself of some tension, stepped forward, just as Sammy came barreling around the corner fumbling with his gun, trying to shove it in his pocket, the gun-sight catching on the fabric.

 

"Sammy! Freeze!" Dean said, loud. And to the men who had spun to keep an eye on him and one on his brother, lifting their guns again. "Don't you dare shoot him." He growled. "I'll haunt you the rest of your fucking miserable lives if you kill him."

 

The men looked back at him, surprised at his vehemence for a millisecond, then the one with the darker eyes and wavy hair, the sorta Sammy look-alike, laughed. "He reminds me of you, Vic." He said to his partner.

 

Which reminded Dean of the ghost. He looked around. "Where is the ghost?" He asked. "We followed him here, then he vanished."

 

"Better look around." The tallest man said. The one that looked like the ghost.

 

"You are coming with me, Vic. I am not letting you out of my sight. Not taking any chance on you ending up playing the part of the ghost for real." The second man said.

 

"Hey," Sam said, whispering. "...that guy...he looks exactly like the ghost, Dean."

 

"I noticed that." Dean agreed quietly. "And they know about the ghost. He show to you guys, too? What is he to you, a twin brother?"

 

"He showed up, but I've no idea who he is." Vic said. "But I plan on finding out." Mac went with him, going North.

 

Sammy stared for a minute. "I guess we go this way then," he said. Dean grabbed his arm.

 

"Right with me. I don't want to be more than arm's length from you." He said in the tone Sam instinctively obeyed whenever Dean used it. They crept out into the graveyard.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

Mac had never been a fan of stumbling around in the countryside without good lighting. This definitely qualified as the country, and he couldn't figure out what the ghost wanted them to do out here. If it was even real. If so many people, four now, hadn't seen the darn thing, he'd suspect that he and Vic had been drugged or were the victims of post-hypnotic suggestion. Something like that.

 

But, he thought, nearly turning his ankle as he stepped on yet another loose stone, he'd seen it, Vic had seen it, and the two boys had seen it. That added up to pretty close to proof it existed as more than a hallucination. It also looked enough like Vic that Mac wasn't going to take any chances on it being important to the other man's health and safety that they find it, or whatever it wanted them to find.

 

Vic was gliding along next to him, having a lot less trouble with the footing, damn country boy. Mac bit back the complaint that automatically rose to his lips. Distraction was not good, not now. He could complain all he wanted when they were back on familiar ground.

 

What was with the two kids they'd just met, anyway? The one, the older one, he guessed, was pretty good, alert and suspicious and even clever. The younger one...the only thing that came to mind when Mac looked at him was innocent. Far too innocent to be with them here in this place, and far too innocent to know about ghosts. His eyes were the sweetest damn innocent orbs Mac had seen in a long time.

 

Cute. The kid was cute. The older one was more classically handsome, harder and stronger. Durable. And trouble if he had the chance. Mac believed without any problem at all that that one had seen a few ghosts, and other things, too. Dark things. Bad things. He'd used the gun he'd held, Mac had no doubt. That kid had left death behind him. Not wanton killing, more like...necessary killing...but he'd definitely shot people before.

 

"Watch it." Vic hissed when Mac stumbled again for the umpteenth time. He sounded like a whole herd of cattle all by himself.

 

"I'm not meant to be out here." Was the shockingly mild reply Vic received in return. He was surprised enough that he turned towards his partner, just as the hair on the back of his neck stood up, stiff.

 

Mac vanished in front of his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

  
Author's notes: Krychek haunts a few people....and leads them into the grave.  


* * *

The ground gave away all of a sudden, all the support under his feet vanishing, leaving him suspended in thin air for a blinding instant of pure panic. His heart did it's best to leap out of his throat. Then he was dropping.

 

Mac fell, not far, but far enough he feared for the landing. His ankles stung with the impact before he finished the thought. He landed hard, his legs buckling to absorb the shock of it. He rolled to the side and came up, gun in his hand. Dirt cascaded downa roudn him. Not a lot of it, thank Christ, not enough to bury him. It was dark but not black and as he looked up and to the left, he was face to face with a very impatient ghost. Looks exactly like Vic, he thought for the hundredth time. Same pissed off expression, same attitude, same everything.

 

Above, on the surface, the real Vic was yelling for him. His voice deceptively even, strong and calm, but Mac heatd his alarm underlying it. And through the ground footfalls, running steps pounded closer, closer. He heard the voices of the two young men who had met them in the graveyard. asking what had happened. Vic answered. And Mac grew anxious.

 

Vic was up there alone without back up with two strangers. One of whom Mac knew wasn't harmless, one of whom he knew had killed and used a gun with deadly intent. Deliberately. One of whom he wanted away from his partner. And he was down here with a ghost and couldn't do anything about it. Vic up there with them. No back up. He was more afraid for Vic than for himself.

 

The ghost didn't much like waiting. Mac deduced that by the way it glared at him when he shouted up to Vic that he was OK. Maybe he should be more afraid for himself he thought.

 

"Mac?" Vic was at the edge of the hole, a darkness outlined against the night sky. His face turned towards the ghost, illuminated by the faint light coming off the haunt. His own eyes, dark green and huge. Scared for Mac, the other man realized in surprise. Vic Mansfield afraid for his safety? Will wonders never cease?

 

"Get down here." Mac growled gruffly. Better Mac and Vic were down here, together, than one of them up there with the wonder boys. Vic hesitated. Looking around trying to see exactly where Mac was.

 

"We can pull you up out of there." He offered, looking away from the irritated visage of the ghost. Which the ghost didn't seem to like all that much. It flared.

 

"Vic." Mac said, impatient, jerking a thumb in the direction of the spirit. "We got up out of our warm beds and followed it here. I'm not going to climb up out of this"...he glanced around...where was he exactly? In a hole in a cemetery... Did that mean it was a grave? He felt the unease crawl right up his spine. Yech. He didn't try to see what he was standing on. "If this is where he wants us to be, let's be here. Get it over with. Then we can go home. Back to bed. So we can get some ghoddamn sleep before we have to go to work. And deal with Her. And on no sleep, too. Fuck."

 

"What?" Vic's voice rose as his partner swore. It wasn't that unusual, Mac cursing, though usually it was in Chinese, in English it made him worry. They didn't spend much time in graveyards. It was making him just a little nervous.

 

"Nothing." Mac wiped off the sticky, chunky...whatever it was from his shoe...and frowned up at Vic. "I'm waiting." He said curtly. Holding his gun so hard he'd not be surprised if the metal bent.

 

"Move over." It was the shorter of the two men. Dean. Winchester. Yeah. Mac backed up against the wall of the hole and studiously kept his eyes from wandering. He did not want to know if bones were sticking out from the soil around him, poking him in the back.

 

Dean slid without hesitation down into the chasm. Landing lightly next to Mac, with a faint squelching sound. Mac, who turned and rotated to make sure he had a clear line of shot if he should need to take it. The ghost was glowing even more impatiently, going light then dark then light then dark. Like a strobe. Waves of irritation. Mac interpreted the emotion from long association with Vic. Vic did the same thing. Uh, well not quite, he didn't glow when he was pissed, but you sure figured it out fast.

 

Dean held up his arms, a plain leather cord tied around his wrist drawing Mac's eye. Huh. He had a flash of knowing the cord was something important. Then the man spoke his voice soft and coaxing.

 

"Come on Sammy." Dean called up into the darkness. And that was it. The tall slender boy-man slid right into his arms. No hesitation, no doubt. Mac looked up at Vic. Vic looked at the two others then at Mac and then away.

 

"How are we going to get out?" Vic asked, delaying. Thinking maybe he should stay up here, out of the hole. Or at least take the time to rig an escape. A rope, something.

 

"How the fuck do I know? Get down here, Mansfield. Your alter ego isn't getting any happier." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the blazing ghost.

 

"I hate dirt. And I hate graves. And I hate the dark. And oh....! Shit!" Vic careened down, far less gracefully than either Dean or Sam. More like how I landed, Mac noted with satisfaction, moving to Vic's side to dust him off. Does ten or so years really make that much difference?

 

Ten...try fifteen his subconscious chimed in. Face it Mac old boy, you are getting old.

 

The ghost took off down a narrow split in the earth. Vic hesitated, Mac's hand still gripping his arm. Sam and Dean never paused, following, scrambling on hands and knees to squeeze through the opening. Dean's gun shoved down the back of his very well fitting jeans. Sam going first wasn't what Mac expected, but it was what happened. Fucking fearless, the stupid kid.

 

"Well," Vic asked sharply, his own irritation reminding Mac of the ghost. "Go on. I'm right behind you." He shuddered. Giving the lie to his bravado. Vic was creeped out. Even more so than Mac was.

 

Mac said nothing, just stuck his own weapon in his holster, snapped the strap to hold it secure, got down and crawled. And crawled. And crawled. The walls of the tunnel seeming to close in as he went further. To press down. To steal the air from his lungs. He stopped, terror filling him like fine wine.

 

Vic bumped into him from behind. That didn't help. He let out a whimper. Vic's voice reached him. Low and deadly, tremulous.

 

"Ramsey, if you aren't ghoddamned dead, I'll kill you myself if you don't get moving." His tone was edged with the same panicked fear Mac felt. "Don't you dare stop in this...this..."

 

He couldn't get the word out, but Mac heard it in his own mind. This grave. Grave. He shot forward, crawling so fast he was distantly proud of himself. It had been a hell of a long time since he'd done any dedicated crawling. He heard Vic coming up behind him just as fast. Every move of his limbs echoed the word. Swish. Grave. Swish. Grave. Grave.

 

They burst out into an enlarged space. Stone walls, he thought as he collapsed onto his back, sucking in great gulps of air. Fuck if he was going to go back that way to get out. They'd have to find another way. He'd chew his way out, straight up if he had to first. Vic landed on top of him an instant later, driving all of the hard won breath out of him.

 

They clung to each other, Vic's face white in the light cast by the flashlights the two young men were holding. Mac felt a wave of weak shame. He didn't have one. So much for being prepared. He held on to Vic, which was far more important right now than not having a light. As long at the other guys had theirs. If they hadn't, if they'd all been sitting in the dark...Mac thrust that thought away.

 

Then he looked at Sam and Dean sitting together. Close. Patient. Watching him and Vic. Their hands...Mac squinted to be sure. They were holding hands. Fingers entwined. The younger one, taller, leaning in his cheek resting on his borhter's touseld bland hair. A leather cord on each wrist Mac could see. He glanced up. Saw not even the smallest hint of shame on their faces for being caught holding hands. That was just weird. What would he feel like if he and Vic were...he flushed hot. Stop right there, Ramsey, he told himself. Stop. Vic will shove your head down your throat for that idea. Or up your ass, he thought perversely.

 

Only Vic wasn't in any position to do any shoving. He was laying on top of Mac, fighting to catch his own breath. Mac let his hand steal up and cup the back of Vic's head. He held on bravely for two, maybe three seconds. Surprised it was safe to touch Vic like that for even that long. Then he let go, pushed Vic up to sitting.

 

"Now what?" Mac asked. And as if in answer the ghost popped back in through the ancient door across the modestly sized mausoleum they were crouching inside. Then it vanished down the corridor outside the buried room. The Winchester boys sprang after it.

 

Mac and Vic were a fraction more cautious. Caught sitting, gaping.

 

"You got a light?" Vic asked peering into the darkness left behind by the Winchesters leaving.

 

"Nope." Mac answered.

 

"Then lets get moving." Vic said and went. Mac almost close enough behind him to stick a hand in his pocket. A front one.


End file.
